In the sport's early days, baseball umpires were unpaid volunteers. They were often a spectator and, sometimes, a player, chosen by the home team with the consent of the rival team’s captain. In 1878, the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs, organized two years earlier, mandated that home baseball teams pay umpires $5 per game.
Candlepin bowling uses ten small pins and three balls, and is played primarily in the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The ball is only five inches in diameter, is made of hard rubber composition, and has no finger holes.
Carl Yastrzemski is the only baseball player to have at least 100 hits in each of his first 20 seasons. At least he had 100 hits every season from 1961 to 1980 when he only earned 83 safeties during the strike-shortened 1981 season(he also had 100 in 1982 and '83, his last two seasons).
Casey Stengel didn't retire from managing the New York Giants until he was 75 years old.
Chicago's Wrigley Field is one of the oldest and most cherished ball parks in the United States. The American tradition of singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the beginning of each baseball game started at Wrigley Field during the first game of the 1918 World Series. The ball park is affected by wind conditions more than any other major league park. Breezes off Lake Michigan favor pitchers, but winds blowing toward Lake Michigan make home run hits easy. It is the only park where it's more difficult to hit a homer down the foul line than to hit one 50 or so feet out in fair territory, because the bleachers protrude into the outfield.
Clay court, hard court, and grass are the three types of tennis court playing surfaces.
Crowds of up to 15,000 are common for major badminton tournaments in Malaysia.
Despite the strong presence of Latino baseball players since the 1940s, Armando Rodriguez in 1974 and Rich Garcia in 1975, both in the American League, were the first Hispanic umpires in the majors.
During his amazing baseball career, Ty Cobb stole home 50 times, setting then and still holding the all-time record in stolen home runs.
During the football season of 1905, at least 19 players died in college and high school contests.
Earl Lloyd was the first black ever to play in an NBA game when he took the floor for the Washington Capitols on October 31, 1950 in Rochester, New York. Lloyd was one of three blacks to become NBA players in the 1950 season. The other two were Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, who was signed by the New York Knicks, and Chuck Cooper, who was drafted by the Boston Celtics. Cooper debuted the night after Lloyd.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, houses the largest collection of baseball cards: 200,000.
Instant replay added a new dimension to televised sports when it was featured in a 1963 telecast of an Army-Navy football game. In 1964, it became a standard technique on television.
The name of the game “cricket” is believed to have been derived in the late 1500s from the Middle French word criquet, meaning “goalpost.”
Izzy, the Olympic Games mascot in 1996, was almost universally regarded by marketing experts as a dud. The blue Olympic mascot, with its bulging eyes and dangling feet, was a poor seller for many licensed goods makers.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame is located in Cooperstown, New York. The city, famous to sports buffs the world over, boasts only about 3,000 residents.
Jack Broughton was one of the most revered boxing figures in England. He was buried at Westminster Abbey, the burial place of British nobility, although Broughton was not a member of English royalty.
The National Golf Association says that, at golf ranges, an extra-large golf-ball bucket contains about 150 balls; large, 90 balls; medium, 63 balls; and small, 35 balls.
Jack Graney of St. Thomas, Ontario, was the first baseball player to pitch to Babe Ruth in the major leagues. We all know what the Babe did in his career. As for Graney, he played 14 seasons and then became the first ex-ballplayer to broadcast a game on radio.
The NFL granted the Cleveland Rams a franchise in Los Angeles in 1946.
Go to page:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Home
~ About Us
~ Virtual Girl
